Eight Lessons in Love
by eumonigy
Summary: [ Rule of Rose ] Many things try to take its form, but there is only one true l o v e, everlasting.


Title: Eight Lessons in Love  
Fandom: Rule of Rose  
Rating: PG-13/T  
Pairings: Jennifer/Wendy, Diana/Meg, brief Hoffman/Clara, brief Eleanor/Amanda (I know, WTF kind of crack!pairing is that.)  
Summary: Many things try to take its form, but there is only one true l o v e, everlasting.  
**Spoilers: Throughout the end of the game.  
**Warnings: Femslash, of course!!  
A/N: I only want to mention one thing about the Clara part… I'm at a crossroads where I'm not sure whether I believe Clara was molested or not. If Clara was molested at all, this story takes place before any such thing happens. Also, this story doesn't have any sort of relevant timeline, and some things obviously never happened, so don't worry about it.

**Eight Lessons in Love**

- - -

Wendy gazed hatefully at the ever ticking clock, her heart pounding in anticipation. Only five minutes left before lunch, and then Clara would close the sickroom door and Jennifer would have to eat lunch and then do her chores. She would have no time for Wendy after noon.

Wendy sighed and twisted in her sheets until her chest was sore and then cried a little - just a little - until her tears melted away into anger.

_Oh, Jennifer, how dare you Jennifer! How could you leave me?_

She wiped the remaining wetness away. Two minutes, only two minutes left. Should she count down the seconds before the inevitable betrayal? Should she hold her breath? Scream? Maybe if she yelled loud enough, Jennifer would come back.

She had just taken in the air to do so when the door was suddenly pushed open. Wendy's heart leapt with joy, but crashed down just as quickly when a head of red hair peeked curiously through. Diana, not Jennifer.

The Duchess, stepped through, checked the room discreetly and then closed the door. Once she was sure they were alone, she dipped a revealing curtsy.

There was a silence between them as Wendy was suddenly reminded of the Aristocrats. She hadn't thought about all morning, she'd been so upset. Sitting up in bed, she gazed evenly into Diana's bored eyes.

"She's with that filthy animal, isn't she?" The sick girl asked bitterly, hating how young her voice sounded.

Diana's mouth half crooked into a laughing smile. "I saw her go out to the shed before anyone else woke up. She skipped breakfast. She'll probably miss lunch, too."

Wendy's fists clutched her sheets so tightly it was hard to tell where the clean white of the linen ended and the princess's angry pale knuckles began. "If she does show her sorry face, make her eat the rat. No excuses, just go and get it done." She paused before dismissing her. Inspiration struck in the form of a dog's bark through the window, clear as a bell. "Tell meg to bring the book tonight. I have some new rules and…" Another bark, followed by a familiar, happy laugh. Her eyes narrowed and Diana's dark grin spurred her forward.

"…I know what next month's gift is."

- - -

She tipped Meg's milk so that is spilled across her dress and fell in a puddle on the floor. Still, Meg followed her around and around all day, stained dress and all, until the smell of sour milk seemed to be everywhere and Diana couldn't stand it anymore. She ripped the girls glasses from her face and snapped them cleanly in half.

Oh, how bitterly Meg cried.

She thought,_Can't read now, bookworm? Can't even write your stupid love letters now, can you?_

She said, "We'll fix them. Go get some twine from Amanda."

The twine rubbed a spot on Meg's nose red, and Diana reveled in her constant companion's obvious discomfort. As she swept the dormitory floor, she kept the door open a crack, so that Meg's faltering voice floated down from the Library as she read to Susan. Every waver was accompanied with the mental image of a wince and small hands fumbling with glasses.

Late that night, long after Meg had fallen asleep, Diana crept over to her bed, pulled the paste out of her nightdress pocket and fixed Meg's glasses properly. Then she promptly set them on the floor and stepped on them. She felt the glass cut her foot through her stocking and hissed quietly.

A pair of brown eyes watched her fearfully from across the room.

"What are you looking at, you filth?" Diana whispered coldly. The figure shuffled and the eyes closed. After a moment of stillness, Diana bent down and kissed Meg on the forehead.

"_Goodnight, my sweet._"

She didn't bother cleaning up the trail of blood from Meg's bed to hers, knowing that it be what hurt most of all.

- - -

"Little bird, little bird, little wings on a little bird…" Olivia sang as she tossed the red toy up and down in time with her lyrics. "Little bird, little fight…" Up and down, up and down… "Little flight, little flight, take me take me, far, far up high."

Eleanor, who had been feeling withdrawn enough to not argue when Olivia asked if she could play with the bird, was suddenly filled with disgust. It didn't show as she stalked over to the younger girl and snatched it from her hands.

"Toy birds don't fly," she said as she tossed it into it's cage and closed the door. Olivia let out a piercing wail and fled the playroom.

_Little bird, little bird,_ Eleanor thought somberly as she waited for someone to come and reprimand her. She sat down in one of the chairs and cradled the birdcage on her knees. Pressing her forehead against the tiny bars and poking her fingers through them she felt a rare moment coming on. Her façade slipped, just slightly, and she began to tremble. Giving the cage one violent shake, she sighed and contained herself again.

Inside, though, she was distraught.

_Where are my wings?_

- - -

"She's such a clever girl, a clever, clever girl." _Cleverer than any of your brats, I'll tell you that._

Clara bowed her head modestly at the praise. Mr. Hoffman's friend, Madame Genevieve, was a very young, beautiful woman who ran her own boarding school, and here, Mr. Hoffman was bragging about simple little Clara.

Madame Genevieve seemed to be thinking the same thing as she eyed Clara critically. "She seems rather… plain."

Hoffman cold fingers immediately were at the back of Clara's neck, squeezing gently, rough and coveting. Her chest constricted around her heart.

"You don't understand beauty in simplicity, my dear friend," The man said defensively. "You never have."

Clara didn't understand what he meant at all. If simplicity was beauty, than what was this earthly Goddess, made up and divine and everything parts of Clara and every girl wanted to be?

The woman sighed dramatically, her black lined eyes rolling heavenward. "Perhaps not."

Hoffman left Clara to keep the headmistress company while he went about his duties. Clara, shy around the older woman, felt more and more uncomfortable under her gaze. The icy silence closed in around her until she would have given anything to be able to leave the room.

Finally, _oh, finally_, the woman spoke. "I know him. I've known him almost all my life."

Clara nodded unsurely.

The woman spoke abruptly, with no pretense. "He loves too much, sometimes. Sometimes he puts all his pride into one thing until he's spent and he has no choice but to move on to the next."

Clara frowned. "I don't know what you-"

"Clara, if you wish, I can offer you a place in my school. No expense on your part. France is the best place to refine a young lady." Something in her eyes said that she saw whatever it was that Mr. Hoffman saw in her, whatever Martha saw in her, whatever it was that made adults appreciate her so much.

"That's very kind of you, but-"

Madame Genevieve held up a well manicured hand to silence her. "When that man was twenty-five years old, he had a horse. It was his most prized possession. He hired trainers and stablemen and he fed that horse until the day it bucked him off while riding, just one time." She paused, her eyes sharp and unkind. "He sold it to the glue factory the next day."

The young girl gasped. _Mr. Hoffman would never…_

"Today, he loves this orphanage. One day soon it might be you. Do you really want that kind of life?"

Clara suddenly found the voice that had been hiding from her, and , as sternly as she would tell Olivia to stop crying, she was speaking. "Madame Genevieve, your company has been pleasant, but I'm afraid I have chores to finish." She stood, gave a clumsy curtsy, and headed for the door. Before she left she turned back once and gave the hardest glare she could manage.

"My place is and always will be here."

And even as she said it, she knew she meant "Next to Mr. Hoffman." And her heart swelled with pride.

- - -

The birds went _tweet, tweet, _outside Eleanor's window all day, waiting to be fed. Sometimes one of her cold, calculating hands enclosed around one and it would spend the day imprisoned in the birdcage on her lap, flaunting it's bright colors as she stared at it, waiting.

Finally, disgusted, she would set the thing free and watch as it floated away on the breeze, displaying the beautiful wings and it's rare talent. She would watch it go with no expression, no hint to say she cared at all.

Amanda, arms full of rags, wandering into the playroom one morning to see her standing there, red and green feathers scattered over the floor. She panicked, her breathing labored, and she scurried as fast as her short legs would let her to gather up the scraps on the opposite side of the room. She had already run into both Diana and Meg and her back was still stinging from where they'd struck her.

"What do you see?"

Amanda jumped, dropping all of the rags from her hands, and made to run for the door when Eleanor's fingers, cold and tough as wire, closed around her hair and tugged sharply. Her face was blank and her voice was a monotone, and Amanda was trapped.

"I-I-I-I… I d-d-don't… I-I… I"

"Shut up." She pointed out the window. "What do you see?"

"I-I… I d-don't…"

"Shut up, Amanda. Tell me what you _see._"

"I see… b-birds… b-birds flying…"

Eleanor's eyes searched back and forth. "Do you see it?"

For a moment, for just one second, Amanda thought she saw what Diana and Meg were always trying to draw out of the stony girl. A flash of frustration, a split second of something… something frantic… something almost _loving_.

Eleanor's fingers released her and Amanda stood, unsure. She didn't even know if what she'd seen was real. She was filled with a craving to see that emotion again, her heart racing in selfish want.

Eleanor turned her cold eyes on her.

"What are you still doing here, pig?'

A strike as painfully unexpected and the other Aristocrats' beating. Amanda gathered up her rags and left, a part of her screaming in old hatred, another part whispering in newborn desire.

- - -

Meg cradled her smashed glasses. Everything was very blurry, from her poor vision and the tears that clouded her eyes.

_Diana._

Even her blurred vision could see the bright red trail leading from the destroyed glasses to the older girl's bed.

_How many ways can I say I love you?_

She still remembered the dream vividly, Diana's lips, her loving words; "_Goodnight my sweet_."

_How many ways can I say I care?_

Today she would walk as tall as she could, in a wrinkled dress, her face naked. She would still follow Diana. She would follow her to the end of the earth.

_How many words can I write?_

The sun outside was bright and new. The sun inside Meg's heart was beginning to set.

_How many tears can I cry?_

Hope was dying. Diana would never love her. Diana would never care. Diana would never take her seriously.

_What more can I do?_

Yet she marched on. One way or another, Meg would give Diana all of her.

_Before I've bled my heart dry._

One way or another.

- - -

Jennifer first thought she had been rescued, but now she knew better.

In many ways, the orphanage was much worse than Gregory's basement. At least there she had been loved, even if for the wrong reasons. At least there she wasn't always afraid. It might have been lonely, but at least she wasn't ignored.

Sometimes she found herself missing it. Missing the musty bed and the drab mornings, missed missing her parents, missed the bear watching over her.

But Wendy was kind to her, right? At least Wendy was there.

…Wasn't she?

Something about the way the other girls laughed at her planted a seed of doubt in her mind. Why didn't Wendy ever try to help her?

They made a promise. A promise that meant less and less to Jennifer every passing day.

Everlasting. True love. I am yours.

Jennifer had never been more alone.

Some days she dreamed that her parents would come back, alive and well again and whisk her away as though it had never happened. Some days she dreamed it would be Gregory, and she could go back to the basement and be lonely and sad and loved and looked after. Some days she dreamed it would be a knight, and a new chapter in her life would begin.

She never dreamed it would be Wendy.

Because look how that had turned out. She was not rescued. She was imprisoned more than ever, more than any bars or chains could hold her. She was alone and she weak, so weak. No one spared her a kind glance except the one person who had brought her here in the first place.

She didn't know what to do.

There was nothing she could do.

She wondered how long she would be a poor, unlucky girl, and when that someone in the distance would rescue her.

_- - -_

Always darkness found her again, always.

No matter where she went in her life it was always darkness. Brief periods of dim light followed by endless shadow.

She was frequently alone, and often felt more alone than she was. It was hard for people to spare quiet Jennifer a glance. She was hardly even there, always just passing through, never permanent or important in anyone's life.

Yes, there was darkness.

And yes, there was always something to bring her out of it.

When the dark became to great for her to handle alone, there always came a feeling that someone was there for her. Someone looked after her. Someone watched her.

In her most horrible nightmares.

In her most trying times.

There was soft panting… there was a wet nose, a warm muzzle. A paw on her foot, a cheerful bark to dispel the silence.

Every time it would bring her out of the darkness.

Without fail, she would be rescued.

END


End file.
